The Dividing Line
by Hidden Willow
Summary: M/L (darkfic)- Tess is long gone, but she's left Liz with a valuable lesson.


  
Title: The Dividing Line   
Author: Hidden Willow   
Summary: Tess is long gone, but she's left Liz with a valuable lesson.   
Category: Liz POV M/L (dark fic)   
Rating: R   
Author's Note: Warning *Character death*   
Takes place Post-Departure and then on to Busted.   
// // indicates the song playing in the background   
Song is "Stinkfest" by Tool. "Carnival" by Tori Amos and "High" by Sarah Slean are in there somewhere, if only in the atmosphere.   
Feedback: Send to willow4614@hotmail.com. Just for the record I like Liz, I was once a dreamer, and I don't hold Max as the only one at fault. Flame on.   
Disclaimer: I don't own Roswell or the Roswell characters. UPN and JK do.   
  
********  
  
The blistering heat of the sun fell upon us, as we stood there stunned. I unemotionally watched the streaks that the granolith had painted on the sky. Within minutes, the evidence would dissolve into nothing. As the awareness of my surroundings kicked in, I noticed Max was holding me tightly. The pounding of my blood and the billions of different thoughts rushing through my mind deafened me. There were so many things to take in, so many things to feel, but there was so much emptiness it made everything blur into unrecognizable streaks, just like the streaks in the sky. 

I noticed again how close Max was holding me. My head was pressed into his chest. I began listening attentively to his heartbeat. His heart pounded fast and steady from the emotion soaring through him. You couldn't tell if you looked at him, though. So rarely did things shake him so hard that he let it show. Everything with him was silent anger, silent resentment, and silent fear. It had been so long since he let me see inside of him. It had been so long since he could say he trusted me. 

I felt Max lean his head down and plant a soft kiss on my head. In his small way he was saying he was sorry, so sorry for everything. He was saying that he loved me in his ever silent way. I didn't know how I was supposed to feel. I knew what I had always expected to feel if I could ever have Max in my arms, but I didn't feel that way. I didn't feel much of anything. I was just glad that he was okay and I was grateful that he was telling me what he needed to say in silence. It was too soon for me to hear somber and heavy words. I needed time to let it all sink and then I was sure that everything would fall into place in my mind and in my heart. 

"I've been really wrong about a lot. But I was right about one thing: To get you into my life, to be around you, to love you," he said breaking the delicate silence. With one breath he shattered everything around us. Up until now, the nightmare was still just that-a nightmare. But now everything was real. I needed more time, I thought as each heartbeat of his struck me hard with a sense of doom. I needed more time. 

I could feel his eyes burning into me, but I still couldn't look up at him. I quickly disentangled myself from him and took that one inevitable glance at him. I noticed how dry my throat was. I licked my lips and turned around to the group. 

"We have to get back. Stop Valenti before he gives the Evans those tapes or we'll have even more to explain," I told them with a voice I thought I had lost. I walked to the car without waiting for a response and didn't look back. I was the kind of person who always had the urge to look back, but this time it wasn't there. I could feel their eyes on me as I walked away. After a moment they followed.   
  
*************  
  
A week had passed since everything had happened. I was in my room staring at the walls and staring at the pictures that had once littered my dresser. When I wasn't looking at them I had them hidden under my clothes carefully tucked in my dresser drawers. This felt too familiar. I was hiding again in my room, not ready to face the world. But it was so very different. 

This time there was hope. Max and I could be together. Tess was out of the picture. Max and I could finally have a future. There was no reason for us to be separate any longer. All we had fought for, all we had waited for, and here we were. More accurately, I was here and he was there. 

What was wrong with me, I wondered. I had remained at a distance from him, but it wasn't just with him. I was distanced from everyone else as well. It wasn't on purpose, but it was there. I felt empty inside like never before. Even when everything had been falling around me there was still hope, still love, still some little spark inside. I felt almost broken now. No, no somehow that wasn't the right word. 

I didn't care anymore. I didn't care the way I always had. Maybe too much had happened. Maybe it had started long ago and only now with the storm finally at its end I could see clearly. I could see what had been there all along. I had died somehow along the way. The only way I had managed to keep myself going was to force myself ahead. I had found temporary refuge in my madness. And now I was thrust out into the light and I had to figure out how to live again. 

Days. I had literally spent days locked up in my room. I blocked the window with furniture, disconnected my phone, and tried to put all the pieces back together. Of course, I had been unsuccessful, but I had realized something in those days. Human reasoning was amazingly repetitive. The same thoughts. The same rantings. The same circular logic. How anybody ever managed to get an insight was beyond me. 

I had thought a lot about Max. I wondered if he ever had dreams of Alex. It wouldn't surprise me if Maria still had nightmares. She probably wouldn't let herself remember them in the daylight, but I bet they were on the edge of her awareness. I knew she hated Tess and she would for the rest of her life. I'd guess even now Maria still woke up on occasion trembling, but I knew she was too strong to let it overcome her completely. And I bet Michael was there more often than not to comfort her in his strong embrace. 

She was more human than me. I didn't dream of Alex. I felt nothing for the person who had murdered my friend. And I hated the person I loved. I was a screw-up. I was a freak. I was as alien as Max. And there would have been a time that if nothing I would feel shame and guilt for not feeling the way I was meant to. But I couldn't even do that. I could only take note of what I didn't feel and how I no longer seemed to care about anything. 

I looked at the picture I was holding. It was taken almost a year and a half ago. We had been happy, so happy. I stood up and went over to my dresser. I pulled the bottom drawer open, and carefully put the picture back in, along with the others. I knew I would never look at them again. No more playing around. 

I had been wrong. Max had not broken me this time. I was alright. I was fine. I had to be. All that mattered was that I had survived. It didn't matter that I no longer had romantic notions of true love. It didn't even matter that in its placement was something that scared me, something I didn't want to understand. I had him now. And that was everything.   
  
************  
  
I thought Maria would come to me preaching girl power. I could imagine her telling me she couldn't believe what he had done and that I should make him grovel and let him know without a doubt that things were not okay. But she never said these things. All she kept saying was that he still loved me and that having a son didn't change his feelings for me. She said he'd make it work because after all he was Max. 

She never said to forget him and move on because she thought, as everyone did, that our love was supposed to surpass everything without saying. Our love was so strong I should have just forgiven him because I was thankful to have him again. And that's what I did because I was in love and love made you do crazy things. And so, slowly we had fallen back into a relationship just as expected. No one argued about it. In fact, everyone seemed a little bit relieved. It made no sense when I had stayed away from him. Now everything was back to normal. Everybody wanted normal so bad. 

And things had gone back to normal. So normal it was frightening. Everything changed that day we had learned of Tess's betrayal. We had changed. And yet no one wanted to own up to it. Max and Liz getting back together made it official. Nothing had really changed. They wanted safety and they created it for themselves. 

There was only so much they could deny. There was still the issue of Max's son somewhere out there in the heavens. Max kept murmuring into my ear that I was everything to him, but that was a lie. He was still out there. Max didn't deny his love for his son, but sometimes he would repeat whispery romantic notions of the past and forget they were no longer valid. 

Two months had past since that day out in the desert and here I was waiting in his room as he went to fetch me something to drink. I looked around me barely moving an inch. There were pages and pages of information. Some were full of meaningless numbers and others of incoherent ramblings. This was his life. This was my life. Somehow, this had become my life. Searching for someone I didn't care about. What had happened that I didn't care about the well-being of an innocent child? What had happened that I didn't even feel guilty for not caring? But it wasn't the baby. It was everything. The only thing that still made me feel was Max. And I wasn't sure that was a good thing. 

I didn't know this is where I would end up. I knew Max wouldn't abandon his child, but I never thought I'd be in the passenger seat on his quest to find him. Not that the others weren't involved as well. They helped him in the little ways they could, but they went on with their lives. I didn't have that luxury. What Max had done was his own doing and so were the consequences and yet he wanted me by his side, he needed it, and a small part of him irrationally expected it. 

And so I got sucked into Max's quest. I approached it the only way I knew how with diagrams, maps, and scientific theories in hand. It was the only way for us to have any time together since Max devoted so much of his life to finding his son. It became a sort of obsession with him that paralleled my own frantic search for Alex's killer only months before. This never occurred to him. Just like it never occurred to him what this search of his was doing to me. He never seemed to notice that each conversation, each plan, each research night, was a reminder of a son that had nothing to do with me, of how different he was from the boy I had fallen in love with, and that he had said he only had me in his heart and yet he could go against it. 

I looked up as I heard Max coming back. He held out the glass of lemonade for me. He saw how I had been scrutinizing the room. I took the lemonade and gingerly began to sip as Max picked up the array of papers to give me a place to sit. He looked at me for a moment and I almost thought he knew what all this was doing to me. But the look in his eyes passed and I felt a twinge of disappointment and relief all at once. 

He began discussing the latest information he had found and I found myself drowning out the conversation. I would hear it again at the group meeting, anyway. He never noticed when my attention strayed. He was always too enthralled in his latest theory. 

I leaned back a bit on the bed, put the glass on his nightstand, and let him keep talking though what I really wanted to do what yell at him. I wanted to scream and shout and I wanted to hurt him. But nobody ever knew the thoughts that went through my head. I never gave a semblance of this insanity that worked behind my eyes. An insanity that I not so long ago thought could be stopped by my love for him, but my love only fueled this fire. Weakness and strength. It was all the same really. 

I watched how the light outside streamed into the room casting light onto some of the papers and left others in the shadows. I watched the movement of his hands as he gestured about. I watched the seconds tick by as I felt my life go down the drain. I never said how futile this quest was. Even Michael, doubter extraordinaire, didn't say a word about how all this was hopeless. How could Max save his child when it couldn't survive a day on Earth? How was Max ever going to find him? It was impossible, but I never said a word either because I had to let him have what he could. After all sometimes all we can ever have is what's left. And I took it. I took him and us because I had to believe that we could survive simple because we were in love. Love made us stronger even if we were weak, tempted, and fickle. 

And it was thoughts like these that almost made me feel okay again. It made everything seem worthwhile. Even though I didn't love him the same way our love still burned me. It gave me fire and soul. It once gave me hope as well, but that was no longer true. I looked at him sometimes and I didn't understand that everything had been just for this one boy. I had sacrificed so much, my best friend had died, our world had ended, and another planet lay in waiting for this one boy. 

I hated him. I hated him for every reminder he brought with him. But, oh lord help me, I also loved him. I loved him for what we had been and what we could have been. My heart had darkness in it now and that part of me wanted him to pay because I didn't think anyone would ever make him. But it seemed like a never-ending fight and I wasn't sure which side would win. I wasn't sure I really cared anymore. 

I tried to understand why everything had happened and I looked at him for a reason, but it wasn't there. It never was. As he came to the end of his speech all I could see was an insolent, little boy who didn't understand faith, consequence, or responsibility. His eyes softened as he began to walk over to me. He sat on the bed and began kissing me passionately. I thought of the way he made me feel when he looked at me, but the rage inside of me still stirred. Everything was intertwined. I didn't know where one feeling ended and the other started. It was like that with me and Max. I lost myself in him and I knew he did too.   
  
************  
  
I could hear the faint tapping of rain outside as I lay, with closed eyes, on my bed. I could almost hear the soft dripping of the rain as it slid down my window pane. It seemed an impossible thing for me to hear, but I was sure that I could. 

It had been a hard day, like the others that had followed it. My life barely qualified as life as it was. Sometimes I couldn't tell if I was really alive. Maybe it was all a dream. Did the dead dream? Was I really just dead and holding on to the memory of life? Maybe that's what the last two years had been. Had I made up everything? The aliens, the healing stones, Nasedo, destiny, Tess, Antar, Nicholas,...? Was it all just my imagination? Maybe it was reality and a dream. Maybe I was in a hospital somewhere on crisp white sheets, surrounded by bland walls, and a strong medicinal smell. Maybe somewhere I was surrounded by get-well cards and flowers and an over-attentive nurse that was hoping for the best for "that poor Parker girl" who still wouldn't wake up. Everything seemed to diverge into a thousand possibilities the second the bullet pierced into me. 

Or maybe I was missing the obvious possibility. Maybe I was just this close to losing my mind. Denial: the lovely, all encompassing, completely necessary, defense mechanism. Psychology should have been my calling. 

I sat up in bed and watched the rain fall. Something was wrong, though. The more I looked, the less I could hear and see what was going on outside. This wasn't supposed to happen. I felt detached and apart from something important. The rain was important- that much I knew. I walked up to the window, but the noises were all wrong. The sound of rain had been replaced by a thousand voices. So many voices and so many emotions. 

I knew I had to get outside. I had to figure out what was happening. I struggled to open the window, but it wouldn't budge. I had to be outside. I was supposed to be there, but my ongoing battle with the window wasn't producing any kind of results. 

A sudden thought occurred to me as I placed my hand out in front of the window. The warmth turned into prickly heat as my hand began to make the window glow. I was a bit uneasy, but somehow felt in familiar territory with the use of my powers. With the window now open I hurled myself outside just as the rain stopped. 

The time of day abruptly changed as I stood out on my balcony with the sun at the horizon. 

Whether it was dusk or dawn I wasnt quite sure of.   
  
*************  
  
The dream had been the night before Max had come to her with a hopeful smile on his face. He thought he had found something in Utah. There had been unusual reports from that area that led him to believe his ship was located there. To say the least, I was confused when I found out it was underneath a convenience store. Nothing could sway Max's enthusiasm, though. I didn't get a word in before he told me we were going there this weekend to go find it. 

An alien field trip was nothing new. My summer had been sprinkled with them. At first all five of us would go (Kyle wasn't a part of the gang anymore. He barely even spoke to the aliens. The "I know an Alien" Club really wasn't doing to well with its membership. One had died and another had cancelled his membership), but now only I managed to get dragged along with Max. The others had given up on the futile trips that cut into their lives. It wasn't their fault. They had a point. Nothing much was ever discovered and we would all come back older and dejected. 

They didn't even know about this little trip of ours. He didn't want to have to deal with them. He had held my hands and told me all he needed was me by his side. 

The jeep slowly pulled to a stop, across from the dingy convenience store. 

"Look's like we have a problem," I told Max. Seeing he didn't understand I pointed to the neon sign that barely registered in the daylight. Open 24 hours a day, it proudly said. Fantastic. 

"Ok, that complicates things. Now it's up to Plan B," Max said.. 

"What's Plan B?" I asked. He didn't answer as he drove off. 

We drove for another twenty-five minutes before Max pulled into a gas station. He had been quiet the whole time and it seemed he had come up with something. He turned to me with reluctance. I knew I wasn't going to like whatever he was going to say. 

"We're going to need a distraction. Liz, we have to stage a robbery. It'll give me enough time to check things out. It's the only way," he tried to convince me. 

"What are we supposed to hold them up with? Our hands?" I asked as I made my hand in the shape of a gun. 

He looked down at my hand, then bent down to grab something behind the car seat. He pulled out two guns from his bag. 

I breathed in shapely. The bastard. They had been there all this time. Up close it was obvious they were fake, but that didn't help ease my anxiety and fear. There was no way I was going to do this. 

"They're not real," he said as he put one in my hand and showed me for himself. "I just need some time," he continued 

"And what if we get caught? What will we do then? This isn't Roswell and we don't have Valenti on our side to cover for us." 

"We won't get caught. I'll take care of everything." 

"They didn't just leave some ship down there unprotected," I reasoned. 

"Maybe they forgot about it. Maybe they didn't. I can handle it. My powers have increased over the months," he said almost emotionlessly. 

"And what about me? What am I supposed to do?" 

"I'll protect you." 

"And if you can't?" I didn't know why I was saying this. I knew where I was leading the conversation and I had no idea why I was doing this. It was like some destructive force inside of me was pushing me to this. 

We both looked down at the guns. He knew what I was thinking and he didn't like it. 

"You don't know how to use a gun," he said. 

"They won't know that. All I need is for them to think twice before coming near me," I said in return. 

He put his hand over one of the guns begrudgingly and made it real. I wasn't even sure he'd be able to do it, but he had. There were no more excuses now. 

I looked at it, mesmerized by its beautiful, sleek appearance. The light from the sun glared off its body and I could immediately feel its heavy weight when Max handed it over to me. 

We both got out of the car. I began getting used to the feel of it as Max went ahead and changed the license plates. I pointed the gun to the out of place patch of field on the right of us. I almost felt like a different person. It made me feel powerful. And that's what I needed to be able to do this. Max watched me and began laughing. 

"What?" I said a little miffed he had ruined my moment. 

"You have the safety on. Here," He said as he took the gun and showed me how to take the safety off. "Don't forget that. It's kind of important," he said teasingly. 

He went ahead to fill the jeep up and I continued practicing holding the gun. I was probably holding it all wrong, but a gun was a gun and it had this uncanny ability of making other people nervous. 

It would be nice if I could practice in silence, but I could hear the music coming from the gas station store from here. It was loud and angry. I was surprised I recognized the song. I didn't listen to this kind of music. I couldn't remember where I had heard it or when. A lifetime ago no doubt. 

//It's not enough   
I need more   
Nothing seems to satisfy   
I don't want it   
I just need it   
To breathe, to feel, to know I'm alive// 

I turned my attention away from the song and tried to keep my mind on the present. It was all about focus. I just had to concentrate on the barrel of the gun, my target, and the way my fingers felt against the gun. Nonetheless, I could feel the old emotions trying to bust their way out. My fingers began to tremble. I could feel it bubbling over. I could feel the sickness and I could almost smell the blood. The blood. My blood. It had happened so fast. So fast. I didn't even realize. Suddenly I had been on the floor and there had been this incredible pain. It had made me feel so powerless, so insignificant. 

//Blend and balance   
Pain and comfort   
Deep within you   
Till you will not have me any other way// 

The onslaught of nausea hit me all at once as I stood there weakly trying to stop it. I quickly ran towards the restroom as I began to feel my stomach contracting. I pulled the safety back on and gently placed the gun into the sink. I threw myself to the floor in front of the toilet and began vomiting. The smell of my vomit was bad enough, but the smell of the restroom didn't help. I tried to level out my breathing and calm myself down. I was okay now. It was just the stupid gun and the whole stupid plan overpowering me. 

//It's not enough   
I need more   
Nothing seems to satisfy   
I don't want it   
I just need it   
To feel, to breathe, to know I'm alive// 

I tried to focus myself. My knees were still shaking and I still had goosebumps. My face was covered in a thin sheet of sweat. I could hear the music even clearer from here. There was only a wall separating me from the store now. I flushed the toilet and went over to the sink. I grabbed the gun and put it in my pocket. 

I cleaned myself as best I could but my face still looked horrible. The reflection I saw had haunted eyes and a grim face. I stood back and took a deep breath before I left. 

//Something kinda sad about   
the way that things have come to be   
Desensitized to everything.   
What became of subtlety?// 

As I came out my eyes met Max's. He immediately knew that something was wrong. I stayed quiet wanting this moment to pass as quickly as it could. He held out his hand and touched my face. 

"What happened?" The look of pure concern touched me. It had been so long. 

"I just felt a little sick," I explained embarrassed. 

He looked down and saw the gun peeking out of my pocket. All at once he seemed to realize his mistake. 

"I can't believe I forgot. I just was so.... thankful ....and I never thought-I can't believe I asked you to carry that ..." Max said. 

"It's okay, Max. I can do this. Remember what I said. We're in this together." I said determined. If this much isn't true than I'm more lost than I think I am. 

He looked at me for a moment and waved his hand over my mouth taking away any evidence of what had happened moments before. 

"Better?" He asked. 

I slowly nodded, but I could still taste the sickness. 

//How can it mean anything to me   
If I really don't feel anything at all?   
I'll keep digging till   
I feel something// 

I turned my head to the direction of the music and glanced vacantly at the store. I waited until I had pushed my feelings to the tip of my toes before walking to the jeep. The song echoed in my head as we drove off.   
  
*********  
  
We decided to go find a motel. We only needed a place to crash for a few hours before night fell. We were going to hit the convenience store late at night thus lowering our chances of having to deal with customers and having the advantage of the cover of night. From there we would immediately head back to Roswell. We couldn't afford to stick around which meant we had to get as much rest now because we wouldn't get a chance to later. 

Max went ahead and paid for the room while I waited out in the jeep. It was best we were seen as little as possible. I carried my small duffel bag and followed Max to our room. He opened the door and as I walked through I flashed back to the time we had caught Maria and Michael in a compromising position in a motel not much different than this one. This whole adventure was one big trip through memory lane, wasn't it? 

I looked around the place and yelled out that the closest bed to the door was mine. I passed through the room and headed straight to the bathroom to change for tonight. As I removed my things from the duffel bag I noticed Max had altered my extra set of clothing while I had been at the gas station bathroom. The clothing now in my possession was more snug than the items I had put in. Not to mention there was less material, I thought as I held up my altered shirt to the bathroom light. 

I held the shirt to my nose, inhaling the scent of clean clothes. The smell brought back memories for me. I could hear the sound of the fireworks bursting, the smell of hamburgers on the grill, and the feel of mosquitoes biting at my bare skin. It was all in my mind, but it felt like I was re-living it. 

I had spent the day running around with Maria and Alex. All of us had been scolded throughout the day for not keeping still. I remember Alex had been wearing a blue t-shirt with clouds on it. He had worn it for three days straight and would not change it. Maria and I had made fun of him, especially after we found out that he had been wearing it to get the attention of a quiet girl named Amber in our second grade class. He had found out she loved clouds and kittens, but Alex had his dignity and refused to wear a shirt with kittens on it. Maria and I pretended to gag from the smell whenever he was nearby, but he didn't actually smell. His mother couldn't get him to wear another shirt, but she made sure it was washed every day. 

I could remember that shirt so clearly because it had smelled crisp and fresh, just like I imagined clouds smelled like. Finding myself lost in a memory, I quickly pushed myself out of it and threw the memory into the recesses of my mind. 

I pulled off my shirt and jeans welcoming a nice clean pair of clothes. I looked into the mirror and frowned at my new appearance. This was all ridiculously un-me, but I tried to think optimistically. When in Rome and all that. Besides, I couldn't go robbing a store while wearing J. Crew clothing could I? This whole thing was like a big Halloween party anyway. This just made it official. I wasn't me, Max was definitely not himself, and we both were hiding behind our masks. We were no longer the same people who had fallen in love with each other, but there was just enough of the familiar to maintain that magnetic pull that no doubt would led to our untimely demise... 

I suddenly wondered what Max was going to wear for tonight.   
  
***********  
  
I opened the door hesitantly trying to see Max before he could get a glimpse of me. He was going through his bag as I sneaked up to him and put my hands over his eyes. 

He had already changed into a leather jacket, a black shirt, and some dusty pants. I inhaled the smell of leather as I pressed my face to the curve of his neck. I could feel myself smile against him almost involuntarily. 

I pulled myself away from him, keeping my hands over his eyes, and moved my mouth close to his ear. I could feel him waiting for my next move. 

"What are you wearing?" I teasingly whispered into his ear. 

My hands dropped to my side as I began to laugh. 

"I think the question is what are you wearing?" Max responded as he turned to see me. 

"Not very much, apparently. I guess that happens when you get to pick the outfit." I answered. 

My smile got wider as he smiled one of his amazing smiles. It was something I rarely got to see anymore. 

I watched him as his eyes roamed down to my stomach. His soft, serene eyes changed almost chemically to intense, hungry eyes. I could feel myself warm up with his gaze. 

His mouth was on me before I could react. I pushed myself on him as hard as he pushed into me. Everything around us seemed to slowly burn while we fought for more of each other. We weren't gentle. We were hard and violent. It didn't matter. All I needed was more. I held him firm in our embrace and sought to take whatever I could find with my roving hands. 

His fingers brutally grabbed at my face, hair, and body as he kissed me, but as we began to slow down he gently retraced the paths he had made all over me. 

We looked at each other as we pulled away. The first of these encounters had left Max slightly shaken and apologetic, but somewhere along the way he understood that this is how things were now. He didn't care. He had me be whatever he wanted me to be.   
  
***************  
  
I awoke to the sound of the door closing. I sat up and saw Max enter with brown paperbags in hand. 

"Lunch," he said as he gave me a bag. 

"You should have been sleeping. You have the whole drive back. That is unless you want me to drive part of the way," I said hopefully. 

"No way. I've seen you drive," he teased. 

"You taught me how to drive. And I'm not that bad. You're just a control freak. I should have known better than to ask you to teach me," I said in the same vein. 

"You know you had fun being my student," Max said as he leaned in to kiss me. 

My driving lessons had been... educational, but they were soon overshadowed by Max's obsession to find his son. I wasn't willing to give up my lessons so I found another instructor. Kyle was an excellent teacher who was patient, understanding, and fun to be around. I think it was as important to him as it was to me. For a few minutes we were at peace. There had been a time when there was just us, without an alien in sight to disrupt our lives, and for a moment we could pretend nothing had changed. 

But that was as far as we could help each other. He tried to get through it by meditating in search of finding peace within himself. I tried to get through it by embracing what was left. I embraced the pain and the pleasure in the few places I found them. 

"For the short time I was your student I had fun," I replied after returning his kiss. He quickly kissed me again before he went to sit on his bed. 

I opened the paper bag and slowly unwrapped the sandwich. I took a bite. It was going to be a long night.   
  
************  
  
The wind whipped my hair against my face as we drove down the deserted road. The slight stinging it left on my face made me feel alive. It reminded me of the time Max and I had been driving on a road like this, but in broad daylight. Unfortunately, that ended in a car accident and a visit to the hospital. That was when everything had been so new. Things were different now. I felt more worn nowadays, but I also felt more comfortable in my own skin. 

I saw Max turn to look at me from the corner of my eyes. I laid my head back watching the stars above me. So many of the stars I saw now had been long extinguished. It was that very notion that got me first interested in science. When I was little I was fascinated by the thought that every night above me was the past. And from there my interest grew the way everything grew in the mind of a little girl. 

The stars had come to hold so much more meaning in the past two years. Up there somewhere was Max's past and future. And right here and now this is where he belonged, with me. Sometimes that frightened me knowing it was only for now, but then sometimes it was more than enough just to have that chance to be with him. 

The stars seemed especially bright tonight. It was either the fact that we were away from town or that it was so late, but I thought it had to mean something more. 

"They're beautiful," Max quietly said quickly glancing above to see the same stars I was gazing at. 

"Beautiful and deadly. Keep your eyes on the road, Max," I said lightheartedly. 

"I am. What do they remind you of?" Max asked me. He always wanted to know what I was thinking or at least he used to. 

"They once reminded me how big the universe was. And that even though things seemed chaotic there really was an order to the madness. It felt reassuring," I said not being able to hid the awe in my voice. 

"And now what does it remind you of?" 

"Of your home. Of you," I answered. "Of Tess," I added after a beat. This wasn't the best way to continue our lighthearted conversation, but I didn't care. This was the truth. 

"Liz..." Max started to say with a solemn tone. He didn't know what to say, but I wasn't looking for an apology, an assurance, or anything in between. It was just another thing that could have remained hidden. I didn't want that anymore. 

I was surprised the way her name had rolled off my tongue. It hadn't made me feel sick to my stomach for once. She was a sparkle in the heavens like the stars. She was out there somewhere and she always would be. And an eon from now and an eon ago we had been one. We had existed as the same thing just like I had once been one with Max, Alex, Maria, even the grocery bagboy who always gave me a shy smile. It was hard to not hate and not love in life, but one day it wouldn't matter anymore. One day I'd be piece of dust drifting along a planet and everyone I had every known would be the dust with me. 

"Sometimes I can see the future up there. I know that it's more like the past, but the past and the future seem like the same thing sometimes," I explained in my attempt to stop him from trying to make things better. 

He glanced at me with a look of uneasiness before he turned his eyes to the road. I gently rolled my head over to his direction and watched the shadows of the desert move behind him at a frantic pace. It was like a nightmare. 

"This time it'll be different," he assured me, misunderstanding what I had just said. 

Different. I tentatively mouthed the word to myself and looked back towards the road ahead of me. Maybe it was going to be different this time.   
  
************  
  
We were only a few minutes away from the convenience store and Max was going over the plan again. I had stopped listening awhile ago. I knew this was important, but the air was tingling and I couldn't concentrate. Max used to make me tingle. He even used to make me glow. I remember I had been disappointed that I couldn't do the same to him. He told me he was glowing, just on the inside. Maybe...maybe I was just glowing on the inside. 

I still loved him. It had just become tangled and complicated, even a bit uglier, than it had been at the beginning. There was hate there too, but hate and love weren't so different. Max and Tess had once loved each other somewhere along the passage of time and when they had been brought back together it had turned into something else. Even though Tess still held on to the past and was determined to be with Max, even though a part of her loved him, she hated him. She despised him. She hated how he controlled her, hated what she had given up for the very idea of him, and how after all that time all she was met with was disappointment. 

Everything about her seemed to ring true with me now. I never thought Tess had truly loved Max, but I began to wonder that maybe she had. How could I deny any part of her now? I saw her in Max everyday. She had changed him somehow. I had broken him and she had put him back together in her own image. I could see his eyes gloss over sometimes and I just knew he was thinking of her. And sometimes I found myself thinking of her. It wasn't just him. She had poisoned me too. She had made her way into Max's blood when he had become a part of her and through him she had become a part of me. She was there in the shadows of my slumber. She was there in the illusion of day. It was because of her that I felt things I had never felt or thought before. 

Max regarded her as the devil. At least he did in the presence of others. But I didn't remember her that way. She wasn't evil. She wasn't chaos and destruction. She was- she was a mortal thing. 

I never thought things would turn out this way. After everything that had happened in Roswell I thought she had grown into a different person, but she turned against us. I guess you can't get rid of what's inside of you. It just caught up to her. So many things that have happened since have felt surreal, but what she did, who she was, I feel it in my bones. I see her in Max and I know she'll never fade. She'll never fade from me either. I wonder, wherever she is, if she's haunted by us as well. 

As the jeep slowly pulled to a halt I brought my attention back to the present. I regarded Max once again and found myself in silence. He was looking out into the darkness, lost in his own thoughts and I knew that sometimes no matter what your mind tells you ultimately it's your feelings that make the decisions. That had always been the way for the both of us. 

I couldn't imagine my life without Max Evans and I didn't want to. My hands began to tremble as Max held my hands. He looked into my eyes and I wanted to remember this. It's important to remember how things end. 

"Liz, you promised me...I know you can do this," he gently pleaded with me after seeing my apprehension. 

I knew I would do this. I leaned in to kiss him and met his surprisingly warm lips. I was asking for everything that had been taken from us with that kiss and for everything to come. 

We slowly parted and just waited a moment before we let the world come crashing back. I could feel the warmth of his lips still on me. I could feel the heavy weight of the gun in my jacket pocket. Max went to turn the engine on and I took the gun out. He turned his head to the left as he took a last look to the scenery around him. It was the last thing he'd ever see.   
  
  
  



End file.
